Blondieblue

In college, Financial Aid is two words that a student might hear very often. Financial Aid is money given to a student to help him or her pay for college. There are two different main types of Financial Aid: need-based and merit-based. Need-based financial aid is based on the students’ financial needs as according to the FAFSA (Free Application for Financial Student Aid), while merit-based financial aid is based on the students’ academic record. Need-based is primarily used, but merit-based aid is growing every year in order for a college to attract the best and brightest students. At the Georgia Institute of Technology, also known as Georgia Tech, almost every student is very intelligent. At this particular college, one has to be extremely bright in order to have a merit-based scholarship because of the competitiveness with all the other bright students, and because of this, along with many other reasons, need-based scholarships should be more acclaimed then merit-based financial aid at Georgia Tech.

Merit-based scholarship (not including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship) at Georgia Tech is very competitive. While at Georgia Tech it may be very difficult for a student to receive the Presidential Scholarship, it would probably be easier for that same student to receive the scholarship at any other college. For example, at Georgia Tech I was not even close to being considered for the many merit-based scholarships, yet at the other two colleges that I applied for, I was not only accepted to the school, but also received high amounts of merit scholarships. The students who obtain scholarships from Georgia Tech are extremely smart, some of the brightest in the country, but so are all of the other students attending this institution. The ones who are not able to receive these scholarships often will not have the money to go to college without having extreme debt at the end of college. Knowing that the same student could attend another college and receive almost full scholarships, could possible make these smart students want to attend another college, thus defeating Georgia Tech’s propose of attracting some of the best students in the nation. Although many students do not take this into consideration when making there final decisions for which school to attend, this factor does affect a few students decisions to attend this school. Therefore, for a school that has high regards, like Georgia Tech, scholarships should have more of a need-based criterion.

In many cases, high schools are just clearly not up to scale to adequately prepare a student for college, even more so, the Georgia Institute of Technology. The only high schools that do prepare students effectively are the private schools that cost a lot of money. This is limiting a lower-income student from learning the most that he or she can. These students that attend the private schools obviously have enough money to afford it, so giving them a merit-based scholarship is basically like giving them money for “paying” for a good education. This could be argued against equality for all Americans. In order for all students to be “equal”, students should be awarded for their need. Of the over 1,900 schools in the state of Georgia, 776 did not make adequate progress in the year 2002-2003 and 258 schools were identified as low performance schools (Quality Counts 2004). These statistics should not be this low. Schools in Georgia, as well as schools across the nation, should strive to make sure their students have the best education possible.

Since the adopting of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the overall rates of college attendance have increased. However, there is still a huge gap between wealthier families and those who are not as well off. “The rate at which students from the richest 25% of families attend college is 30 percentage points greater than that of students in the poorest 25% of families” (Heller). The governments, both federal and state, have been trying to close up the hole by awarding those students with lower incomes with need-based aid. "Financial aid is critical to poor students’ ability to attend college, and without it, many of these students would be unable to enroll in higher education and enjoy the benefits associated with getting a bachelor’s or higher degree (Heller)." Also, allowing these lower-income students to have need-based aid will stop the continuous cycle of lower-income families to have lower-income children, whom grow up to live the same life as their parents. They would thus be able to cultivate into what they feel is adequate for them. These students should be able to have the opportunity to learn just as well as students with higher-income families, limiting them because their parents do not make a lot of money is not fair.

According to the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Financial Aid distributions for 2003-2004 (Common Data Set 2003-2004), all scholarships and grants, this is money that does not need to be paid back, was estimated that almost 2 million more dollars was spent towards merit-based aid rather than need-based aid. Although there is a fragment of higher percentage of need-based aid on such things as loans and federal work study, these have to be paid back, thus completely defeating the fact of trying to help people pay for college, because not only do they have to pay for all the expenses of colleges, but also the interest. Having primarily merit-based scholarships on aid that are not to be paid back puts a burden on those students who can not afford to pay for all of college.

Having more need-based aid at Georgia Tech will allow for more diversity amongst the students of this institution. Georgia Tech is known for their highly diverse students, and in able to keep this good acclamation, they will eventually have to start allowing for more need-based aid. According to Time.com, “the number of college applicants ages 18 to 24 is expected to increase a total of 1.6 million by 2015, and of those new applicants, 80% will come from minority groups that tend to be economically disadvantaged (Seaman 2).” If this is true, there will be an extreme debt against minorities in the later years.

In conclusion, more need-based aid should be used at the Georgia Institute of Technology as opposed to merit-based financial aid. It would not only allow more students with lower income students to attend college, but also would allow equal opportunity for all students. This would also lower the gap that has formed between educations in wealthy families to poor families. Changing the ways that financial aid is decided and disbursed will allow these types of situations to be controlled.

ROUGH DRAFT~ I’m up for any critique… spelling, grammar, and just overall togetherness… cause that needs some work… thanks guys

In college, Financial Aid is two words that a student might hear very often. Financial Aid is money given to a student to help him or her pay for college. There are two different main types of Financial Aid: need-based and merit-based. Need-based financial aid is based on the students’ financial needs, while merit-based financial aid is based on the students’ academic record. Need-based is primarily used, but merit-based aid is growing every year in order for a college to attract the best and brightest students. At the Georgia Institute of Technology almost every student is very smart. At this college, one has to be extremely bright in order to have a merit-based scholarship because of the competitiveness with all the other bright students, and because of this, need-based scholarships should be more acclaimed then merit-based financial aid at Georgia Tech.

Merit-based scholarship (not including Georgia’s HOPE Scholarship) at Georgia Tech is very competitive. While at Georgia Tech it may be very difficult for a student to receive the Presidential Scholarship, it would probably be easier for that same student to receive the scholarship at any other college. For example, at Georgia Tech I was not even close to being considered for the Honors Program, yet at the other two colleges that I applied for I was not only accepted to the school, but also into there Honors Programs. Therefore, for a school that has high regards, like Georgia Tech, scholarship should have more of a need-based criterion.

In lots of cases, high schools are just clearly not up to scale to adequately prepare a student for college, even more so, the Georgia Institute of Technology. The only high schools that do prepare students adequately are the private schools that cost tons of money. This is limiting a lower-income student from learning the most that he or she can. These students that attend the private schools obviously have enough money to afford it, so giving them a merit-based scholarship is basically like giving them money for “paying” for a good education. This could be argued against equality for all Americans. In order for all students to be “equal”, students should be awarded for their need.

Since the adopting of the Higher Education Act of 1965, the overall rates of college attendance have increased. However, there is still a huge hole between wealthier families and those who are not as well off. “The rate at which students from the richest 25% of families attend college is 30 percentage points greater than that of students in the poorest 25% of families.”1 The federal and state governments have been trying to close this gap by awarding those needy students with need-based aid. Financial aid is vital to those “poorer” students ability to attend college, and without aid, many of these students would be incapable to attend higher education, thus, not being able to enjoy the profits associated with having a college education.

In conclusion, need-based aid should be used at the Georgia Institute of Technology as opposed to merit-based financial aid. It would not only allow more students with lower income students to attend college, but also would allow equal opportunity for all students. This would also lower the gap that has formed between education in wealthy families to poor families. Changing the ways that financial aid is decided and disbursed will allow this type of situation to be contained.

Extra Topics planned to be wrote about in paper
~ According to the Georgia Institute of Technology’s Financial Aid distributions for 2003-2004, it was estimated that almost 2 million more dollars was spent towards merit-based aid rather then need-based aid. Having primarily merit-based scholarships puts a burden on those students who can not afford to pay for all of college.

1. http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/squaringoff/03jan_need.htm

This paper is a good start although i dont beleive that it has given a well rounded view of the argument. I think that you need to sit down and take into account all the pros and cons of EACH side then include all of this information in the paper, and why your side is the best choice. More specifically i beleive that you are proving yourself wrong when you talk about equality. Equality would be defined as treating all citizens equal. How could our government acheive this better than by not taking race or financial status into consideration and giving money only to those who have earned it. It is not saying that people that dont have the money can't get it, just that they need to work for itsumner

Evalution by CRGaTech.doc
Evaluation By Fastmax:
I think your argument is very strong in some areas. It is great the way you make the reference to high schools that are not up to standards and how that can make it very hard for those students to compete at a school like Georgia Tech. But I must say that some of the information you provided is not concurrent with some of my findings. Like in the first paragraph you said that meritbased need has been growing every year, yet the government abandoned all the merit based funding in the mid nineties. Practically all merit-based funding comes from the state government and that is all primarily HOPE scholarship. Anyway a few minor changes and lengthen the arguments a bit and you will have a strong argument.

Evaluated by Bj1275
First and formost, the tone of the paper should be far more formal than what is put here. You sound more like a person having a conversation on your front porch with your neighbor than a student writing a paper for a college government class. As far as gramatical corrections go: 1.) "...Financial Aid [are] two words.." 2.)"...more acclaimed th[a]n merit-based..." 3.) In your fourth paragraph I would suggest the word "gap" in place of "hole". I think you bring up alot of decent points of why need based scholarship is a good idea, but you're only reason to choose it over merit-based scholarship is because of competition it seems. I would think that competition over scholarship spots would be a good thing and would spur more students to achieve higher ambitions in school. Also, even in the lower or middle class brackets of society there are truly inteligent people who can get merit based scholarships, how does your plan account for these individuals? Or for the case that an individual with a 4.0 at a school that does not teach him as well gaining a merit based scholarship that s/he can not maintain.

Evaluated by SPALDING
I like the arguments and ideas that you bring to the paper, but perhaps you can bring in even more outside recourses to make your argument stronger. I especially like the argument about some state schools do not adequately prepare their students for higher education. This is a good start to the paper but there is still a little bit more work to do on it. The conclusion needs to do a better job closing the paper with final thoughts that you want the reader to come away with.